For the past several years Call Center in the Philippines is the most faster and still growing industry. Call centers began in the Philippines as plain providers of email response and managing services, these have industrial capabilities for almost all types of customer relations, ranging from travel services, technical support, education, customer care, financial services, and online business-to-customer support, online business-to-business support. The call center industry is one of the fastest growing industries in the country.
The Philippines is also considered as location of choice due to its less expensive operational and labor costs, as well as having a highly skilled labor force, proficiency in American-style English and idioms, and a constant stream of college-educated graduates entering the workforce. The Philippines remains as a top BPO destination for the estimated $150-billion business process outsourcing industry.
Kate McGeown BBC correspondent visits a Manila call center to find out how technology has helped make the industry so successful.
When night falls in Manila, a wave of young people scurry into the skyscrapers which criss-cross the city.
They're call centre agents, and because most of their clients are on the other side of the world, the night shift is their busiest time.
Last year, with more than 600,000 call centre workers, the Philippines officially overtook India as the world's call centre capital.
If you phone up to book a flight, buy a theatre ticket or complain that water is cascading out of your washing machine, you're now more likely to speak to a Filipino than an Indian.
The Philippines has a number of obvious advantages when it comes to call centres. Wages are low and most Filipinos speak English in an accent which, given the American colonial influence here, is easy for US customers to understand. Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18061909
Types of support
The calls managed by a number of Philippine call centers can be categorized into one of two types: outbound calls and inbound calls. Outbound calls include advisories, sales verification, customer services, and surveys. Inbound Calls include account inquiries, technical support, sales and various customer services.
Recruitment and training process
The recruitment process for new call center agents may include (but is not limited to) the following:
Phone Screening – this stage determines the voice quality over the phone and how the applicant responds to the call;
Initial Interview – conducted by the company human resource department or another outsource staffing firm to test the speaking skills, attitude and confidence of the applicant in responding to questions;
Examination – this includes aptitude tests, computer-based call simulations and emotional quotient (EQ) tests; and
Final Interview – to assess customer service, technical, or sales skills.
There are various ways in which one may initiate a career in call centers. The most common of which is to apply directly to a call center's recruitment office. This process is commonly coined as a "walk-in" application. Another procedure includes an employee referral, where an applicant is referred by an existing employee of a call center. A person may also apply through an employment agency, which will conduct its own screening procedures, before endorsing an applicant to any call center.
An emerging manner to apply for a career in a call center is through online application, as it provides applicants with an easier way of acquiring more information on the call center or business, an easier application and resume submission and allows Filipinos in more far or remote areas to apply.
Top 10 BPO Companies in the Philippines
It was the year 1992 when the first Business Process Outsourcing was first introduced in the Philippines. From then on, a lot of call center companies have sprung like grass on various parts of major cities in the Philippines. The BPO in Philippines was even named “Sunshine Industry” because of the rampant establishment of BPO firms in this country. Today, you can name hundreds of call center firms scattered across this country but only a few remain huge and successful. Yes, there might be a lot of business process outsourcing companies here but seldom are what you can consider big companies – meaning they pay and treat employees a lot better. So here are the top ten BPO companies that you might be passing by, unknowingly:
Convergys – This is one of the leading companies in the world in line with providing various services such as human resources and billing services. Since the year 2003, the BPO company have grown tremendously and is continually growing and expanding in various parts of the Philippines. It’s largest call center firm is located in Glorietta 5 in Makati City. The biggest firm can house 2,041 seats and it’s also recognized as the biggest call center in the world.
E-Telecare – This company is one of the country’s pride as it’s the first Ayala-backed BPO company. Services provided here are technical support, sales program and inbound customer service. This is also one of the major BPO players that ranked 3rd in the year 2008.
SVI – Software Ventures International is a company that focuses in Business Solutions Development and IT consulting. The company has been operating for more than 20 years now and has ventured into trending world-wide industries like health care and pharmaceuticals, transportation, telecommunications, media, manufacturing, banking and insurance, and energy and government.
Aegis People Support – This firm is considered as one of the fastest growing call center companies in the Philippines. The revenue hit 5.7 billion pesos in the year 2008. The BPO company focuses in providing back-office services to a number of Fortune 500 companies globally. Field of business include telecommunications, travel, banking and finance and health care and insurance.
Teleperformance – With 6 contact centers and more than 7,000 workstations, the Teleperformance is an ISO-certified company that primarily provides services in technical support, back-office support, automation solutions and customer care.
ICT Group – This company started in the year 2003 as a firm more focused in customer care solutions. They have domestic and international businesses as clients in providing support in the fields of health care, insurance, hospitality, telecommunications and information technology.
West Services – With an award of “2009 Employer of the Year” given by the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines, this company is continuing to expand as a BPO center in the country. It mainly supports clients through direct marketing, automated voice response services and customer service.
Epixtar – If there are BPO companies that are more focused in IT services, Epixtar is more into winning back clients and retention. However, their services changed into offering the clients support in the field of financial services and medical transcription.
Teletech – In alliance with Philippine Long Distance Company (PLDT), Teletech aims to grow in business in the fields of integrated customer relations and management solutions. It also has something to brag of as it ranked number one in the year 2008. It’s revenue hit 8.1 billion pesos.
Telus International Philippines – This is a part of a Canadian company named Telus International. Companies here provide various services to their international clients. Services include: telecommunications, customer care, sales, market research, back office support and technical support.
If you have plans of landing on a call center job, it would be better to apply on these companies. It’s not that other smaller companies are not capable of paying and treating employees well. But knowing that these the listed companies are operating for a long time now, it can give you the assurance of getting a better career path and professional growth.
There still thousands of BPO companies in the Philippines. After call centers boomed in Luzon, Metro Manila, some regions in the Philippines have also started to grew up in Visayas (Cebu) and Mindanao (Davao and Cagayan de Oro). About BPO
Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is a subset of outsourcing that involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of specific business functions (or processes) to a third-party service provider. Originally, this was associated with manufacturing firms, such as Coca Cola that outsourced large segments of its supply chain. BPO is typically categorized into back office outsourcing - which includes internal business functions such as human resources or finance and accounting, and front office outsourcing - which includes customer-related services such as contact centre services.
BPO that is contracted outside a company's country is called offshore outsourcing. BPO that is contracted to a company's neighboring (or nearby) country is called nearshore outsourcing.
Often the business processes are information technology-based, and are referred to as ITES-BPO, where ITES stands for Information Technology Enabled Service. Knowledge process outsourcing (KPO) and legal process outsourcing (LPO) are some of the sub-segments of business process outsourcing industry.
In 2010, the Philippines has surpassed India as the largest business process outsourcing industry in the world.
What is Technical Support Analyst?
A technical support representative is a person who provides answers to questions from customers regarding use and trouble-shooting of equipment, usually over the phone. It can either be for hardware, software, use or application of different pieces of equipment, from home appliances, to commercial equipment to industrial machinery.
The technical support specialist deals with the nitty-gritty of troubleshooting and problem solving, using specialized technical knowledge to provide computer support. Help desk support serves as the middleman, acting as the administrator to answer the phone and route the call to the proper specialist. The most common problems that technical specialists address are: connectivity-the user cannot reach data or gain access to it; missing data-data cannot be found; slow performance-excessive amounts of users are slowing down the system; overload-lack of space on a machine for data; or program problems-the program is not running efficiently. While some companies have an internal group to support their technical needs, many large businesses outsource their technical help to other firms. Companies will often pay someone else to supply their hardware and equipment and to provide support for their system and all the technology needed to run it. Database management plays a large part in administering a company’s or client’s data, and Sybaseª is one of the most popular applications to create and manage databases. Many companies are heading toward certifying employees in database management. Sybaseª databases are supported by Unix and operating platforms such as Windows. A technical support specialist with background in both Sybaseª and Unix is more valuable. Knowledge of Oracleª, a more fine-tuned database program, is also in demand, as are Microsoft applications, particularly Sequel Serverª. A technical support specialist should be adaptable and able to work flexible shifts and hours in this round-the-clock business. “The hours are demanding and there is no such thing as nine-to-five. Your pager is on you at all times, even outside of the office. We have 24-hour, 7-day-a-week coverage to deal with clients and I often work a 12-hour day,” says one professional. In addition, stress levels run fairly high, since all problems are considered urgent. “The client doesn’t have any technical savvy or understanding of the problem. All they see is a screen where they can type something in and click on a button to make something happen. We can’t resolve everything immediately, and my job becomes stressful because I’m dealing with people who are often irate.”
My Job as a Tehnical Support Specialist
Working in call center is not that easy as I thought in the first place but then after a long while by undergoing enough training, self-confidence, and skills enhancement and now I could say that working in this industry is simple, as long as you dedicate yourself to your job with effectiveness, proficiency and efficiency. To love what you do, be true what you do and believe what you do. It will measure your skills, your patience, language and the stability of the account where you work under.
I've been working at BPO industry for almost 3 years now, through these years I fully indulged and developed my fashion, skills and talent. My job is to assist users through phone, chat, remote assistance and email. As a TSR (Technical Support Representative) I make sure to help PC users to resolve their issues at timely and most efficient manner as possible. I am currently working as a Resource Person, an employee of Stefanini IT Solutions the IT provider to Ford Motor Company. And I am responsible for the following:● Provide help and advice to people and organizations using computer software or equipment. Support information technology (IT) employees within the organization. Help-desk technicians, assist non-IT users who are having computer problems.
▪ Responsible on providing and accumulating useful resources for specialists in adhering knowledge article processes.
▪ Manning Critical Plant Applications for immediate resolution within the SLA in collaboration with appropriate application support team.
▪ Monitoring Global Incident information and dissipating awareness within the company/organization.
▪ Respond to trouble tickets generated by first-tier support staff within 24 hours; report unusually difficult problems promptly to appropriate central staff.
▪ Troubleshoot and resolve hardware and software problems with high degree of proficiency.
▪ Participate in staff training and attend regular meetings with staff.
I also used to work as Sales Representative or so called timeshare for few months, and I made outbound calls to users promoting resort certificate which is much catching for them due to a great deal and interesting package. At the first place, I love the job, I called multiple users everyday. And we called thousands of phone numbers throughout Australia and New Zealand it includes personal, home phone and business telephone numbers even confidential numbers that are registered on the leads we have. The more you like it, the more you love your job and since you love your job it would potentially give you more and more opportunities. And it happens whatever aspects it would be. It should have been prevailed in any kind of industry you are under.
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